Process of treating beet-seed.



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witnwpao m: ubRms vzrzns co. mo-umnq. WASHINGYO Unrrnn STATES PATENTOFFICE.

AMOS R. BLACK, OF LAMAR, COLORADO.

PROCESS OF TREATING BEET- SEED.

SI-EGIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent N 0. 704,610, dated July15, 1902.

Application filed March 27,1902. Serial No. 100,325. (No specimens.)

T0 (0 whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, AMOS R. BLACK, a citi-' zen of the United States,residing at Lamar, in the county of Prowers and State of Colorado, haveinvented certain new and useful Improvements in Processes of TreatingBeet- Seeds; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear,and exact description of the invention, such as will enable othersskilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

My invention relates to the preparation of sugar-beet seed to hastengermination and enable a seeder to drop and plant one beetseed at a timea regular given distance apart in a row.

In their natural state and present marketable condition sugar-beet seedare of many different sizes and shapes incased in a nutlike shell havinga rough, tenacious outer shell or hull of irregular shape with manyprojections and shriveled sunken spots,which formation causes beet-seedto clog or bridge in the feed-box and also necessarily prolongs theperiod of germination. The above conditions in connection with the greatdifference in the size of the seeds, some being from five to six timeslarger than others, make it an absolute impossibility for any seeder toregularly drop and plant one sugar-beet seed at a time a regular givendistance apart in the row.

The present practice in planting sugarbeet seed for field crops forsugar factories is to sow or drill them close together in rows. Afterthe seeds have germinated and the plants are up, say, three to fourinches the row of plants is then thinned, first by cutting out spacesand leaving from three to four beet-plants standing in a clump orbunchbetween the spaces so cut out. These clumps or bunches must then be verycarefully thinned by hand by pulling up all but one plant, so as toleave but one beet-plant standing every four inches apartin the row.This thinning is necessary in order to furnish room for the remainingplants to grow beets the size required to produce as large a tonnage peracre as will contain the highest percentage in sugar.

The present practice in planting and cultivating a sugar-beet crop isvery costly as to the outlay for the seed Wasted, which amounts to fullyone dollar per acre, also as to theexpensive hand-thinning, whichamounts to an average of five dollars per acre. The waste of seed andheavy expense of thinning can both be obviated by preparing sugar-beetseed to enable a seeder to manipulate it so as to drop andplant one seedat a time four inches apart in the row.

My process for preparing sugar-beet seed for the purpose describedconsists of first grading or sizing beet-seed in its natural state asnow marketed to eliminate the smaller classes from the intermediate andlarger classes, retaining only fully-matured seed. The small-sizedproduct thus obtained is dis peused with. This first step may beperformed by either rotary or shaking screens or other appliances. Thebalance of the seed is next subjected to. a wearing, scouring, orabrasive action which removes all the rough projections from the seed,also all or a part of the outer hull, reducing the seed to anapproximately symmetrical and rounded form, which prevents beet-seedfrom clogging or bridging in the feed-box and also hastens thegermination. The product is then screened again to eliminate theprojections, hulls, or chaff that was removed from the seed by thescouring process.

The grading or sifting and scouring of the seed can be accomplished inany way-as, for

instance, by the mechanism illustrated in the accompanying drawings, inwhich Figure l is a side view. Fig. 2 is a perspective view of therubber-plate, and Fig. 3 is a perspective view of the bed-plate.

In practicing the invention in connection with the mechanism illustratedthe seed is fed into the hopper 2 and falls onto and passes over theinclined shaking-screen 3, where the small and unmatured classes areeliminated. The balance of the seed passes from the inclined screen 3into the feed-box 4c, thence between the inclined grooved plates 5 and6, the bed-plate 6 being stationary and the rubber-plate 5 movable. Thelongitudinal grooves in the plates 5 and 6 are largest at the upper endand taper smaller to the center of the plates 5 and 6. From the centerto the lower end the grooves are of uniform size. When the seed ispassing between the plates 5 and ICO 6, (in the grooves) the slidingmovement of the rubber-plate 5 removes the projections and a part or allof the rough outer hull from the seed, rendering the seed of anapproximately round form and an approximately uniform size. The productthen passes onto and over the inclined shaking-screen 8, where theprojections, hulls, or chaii' which were removed from the seed by theplates 5 and 6 are eliminated and the seeds prepared for planting aredischarged over the lower end of the shaking-screen 8.

The foreging-described process of sizing and scouring sugar-beet seedfurnishes a new and useful commercial product and enables a sugar-beetseeder to perform a new and useful result.

Having thus described my invention, what

